Edited to add: I have had this post queued up for awhile — finally decided to publish it even though it’s super weird…
Flashback.
June 2011.
It was the last couple days of school. Kids were gone. I was cleaning my room and boxing up tons of stuff. I wiped surfaces and peered at items on shelves that I’d forgotten about. That’s when I found a paper sack. I opened it and found ketchup packets, extra sporks, and this…
Hello food-like items!
Oh god…NO! The breadstick was from Day 156 and the cookie was from Day 148! I put them in that bag and shoved them into a corner on a shelf.
I noticed right away that the breadstick was super hard like formica. Then I noticed the thinest layer of green mold:
It’s barely visible in this photo — it’s like dust!
Seeing the mold on the breadstick made feel a little reassured. The breadstick *will* biodegrade one day! But what to do with it now? I didn’t like the breadsticks when I was eating school lunch. But a six-month-old breadstick with a faint dusting of mold? Inedible.
I wondered if the breadstick was harder than my desk. What would happen if I hit the breadstick on the desk? Surely the breadstick would crack…
Flakes of bread came off, but it didn’t crack.
[Pause for me to look and the breadstick and consider my options]
So I banged it harder on my desk…
I got crumbs all over my desk, but the breadstick proved to be virtually indestructible.
Breadstick: 1 Mrs. Q: 0
Moving on to the cookie…
It broke easily in my hands just like it would have six months earlier. Actually, it looked good enough to eat (cookies are my weak spot). I’m left wondering why I didn’t eat it back in 2010… I ran out of time, which happened frequently or I was concerned about any funky artificial food dyes (petroleum-based and created in labs). I guess I decided to stash it in a bag for “later.” Sugar really doesn’t decompose, does it?
So what did I do with the breadstick and the cookie? I quietly put them back in the bag and threw them out. I had no interest in hanging on to them for old times’ sake.
File under: Weirdest post ever
Cookie, cookie.
I do wonder why you didn’t eat that cookie. Did you see that article in USA Today about lunch length and obesity? It’s a good and interesting read. Something to chew on.
🙂 Doesn’t that cookie look great!
I saw that article and I think I need to blog about it!!
Yum!! Petroleum!!
right? Food dyes are not cool. Thanks for commenting!
I have had this post queued up for awhile — finally decided to publish it even though it’s super weird
Hilarious! I guess it’s comforting to see that eventually that stuff breaks down…Sort of.
I know. I don’t know what to think… 🙂
I like this post! funny, the things one finds in the corner of a classroom, after a whole school year…:D
We’ve already talked a little bit about how food effects the behavior of students and we’re only on day 3 of my special education program! Hooray!
The Healthy Home Economist did a post about some 15 year old cupcakes from a grocery store that doesn’t even exist anymore. Still no mold…
Hi Mrs. Q,ut
Liked the post. I agree it was weird but it was fun weird 😉 I have been thinking about you as I prepare to heard back to school this fall. Will you be returning to teaching? Are you returning to the same school (you had mentioned looking for a “new” job closer to home in an early spring post)? If you are teaching, have you told your administration you are soon to be a published author??? I am just bursting with questions about you LOL. Whatever the fall holds for you, I wish you well! What an adventure you’ve been on :o)
Ignore the “ut” after Mrs. Q!! Apparently I cannot type tonight!
I remember that cookie! I think it’s interesting that neither the cookie nor the breadstick seem to have attracted any bugs. Even they know when something’s not food!
That does look like a pretty good cookie, a nice ending to the annual school lunch Thanksgiving.
It’s interesting you dropped the items in your drawer, kind of a fun trip down memory lane!!!
I live in affluent low minority school district outside of Phila., am reading Lunch Wars, planning with a parent of kids in 90% minority attended Phila school district to join the school food revolution. I know the parents in my district will be smug, professional types, many in traditional medicine occupations–higher higher educated, whose kids are controlled by Ritalin and inhalers. I’ve looked at the menus in my district, no freshed prepared there either. They have gotten rid of, supposedly, soda machines, high sugar snacks, transfats, and publish nutritional descriptions of the menus, so they THINK, they have done what they needed to get healthier. Any advice, before I set out to shake up their smug still unhealthy complacency? Their kids are not in the obese and overweight statistics, they think. Rosemary, Mainline Phila. area
This is a good place to start: http://peachsf.org/ Click on the “How-To Guides” link in the black banner across the top of the page.